


As we rise so must we fall, like gravity, fate reigns us in

by Afrokot



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Translation from Russian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:35:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23816248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Afrokot/pseuds/Afrokot
Summary: In a thousand years after the First Blight, Sethius Amladaris will find the constellation Silentir in the sky and, trying to orient himself, will discover that the locations of the stars have changed and that now Dumat’s Paw indicates the pole incorrectly.This phenomenon is well known to the astronomers of the Age of the Dragon, and more than one heated discussion took place at the University of Val Royeaux, but in the times of Magister Amladaris, the history of astronomical observations was still too short to notice the influence of precession.This is a translation of one of my favourite stories written byБольной Ублюдокmade to share his wonderful talent for the written word. I hope I did it justice.
Kudos: 4





	As we rise so must we fall, like gravity, fate reigns us in

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [As we rise so must we fall, like gravity, fate reigns us in (c)](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/611053) by Больной Ублюдок. 



> The style and punctuation are as close to the original as possible.

In a thousand years after the First Blight, Sethius Amladaris will find the constellation Silentir in the sky and, trying to orient himself, will discover that the locations of the stars have changed and that now Dumat’s Paw indicates the pole incorrectly.

This phenomenon is well known to the astronomers of the Age of the Dragon, and more than one heated discussion took place at the University of Val Royeaux, but in the times of Magister Amladaris, the history of astronomical observations was still too short to notice the influence of precession.

Sethius Amladaris, unhappy and lost, will stand in the middle of the desert: the Vimmark Mountains behind, Emerius ahead. Behind — the Grey Wardens’ prison and an endless, painful sleep; ahead — the world, alien and wrong, not belonging to him anymore. An alien world, an alien appearance: unfamiliar centre of gravity, too wide hips, too small hands that make it hard to piss, but — what a worthy reward for his efforts — now he has a pretty nice bosom.

He would have laughed if he could. Before, he could, until he gave away his laugher as a sacrifice for Dumat.

A thousand years ago, he had everything and a little besides. The dead glow of gems; dark-skinned dancers, flexible like heraldic Tevinter snakes; golden sacrificial daggers; altars with still drying blood.

And also: suffocating twilight of an empty temple; dragon heads, looking from bas-reliefs. Pot-bellied statues with fish eyes and toadish mouths. The statues speak with the voices of demons and priests, the voices of Tevinter — rage and desire, sloth and pride.

And also: power, which essence is only cunning, intrigue and deception. And also: magic that is good only for kindling the hearth and cooling the drinks.

All wealth — meaningless yellow metal and a pile of rocks, slaves and concubines — is but meat and bones, blood and offal. Their souls, perhaps, have some value, but they do not belong to anyone.

“If nothing is eternal,” said magister Sethius once, a thousand years ago, “if nothing lasts forever, then nothing has meaning.”

It was a hot northern night, a new moon. In the low sky, like brilliants on velvet, were scattered the stars of the Silentir Constellation. His interlocutor’s profile was barely seen in the weak starlight.

“Mundane power is a husk,” he said, and his interlocutor listened in silence as Magister Sethius’ voice, usually beautiful and sonorous, breaks and turns into the babbling of a madman.

The whole world is a husk.

Around him instead of a flowering garden, he saw ashes and shards, and dry bones, and the sand covering them. He listened for cicadas’ singing; next time he will hear them in a thousand years when red crystals will have grown through his spine, and the song-hum they emit will resemble an insect chatter.

Up above, with eternal light shone Silentir.

Sethius couldn’t have known this, but deep inside his soul, he already suspected that even that inviolability is illusory, that merely the lifespan of stars is very long.

In a thousand years, he will walk through a desert, from the Vimmark Mountains to a city that long ago ceased to be called Emerius, and he will find only ash and shards, and dry bones in the yellow sand, and from under the pretty shell of Grey Warden Janeka will be tearing out a mad, blighted creature — Corypheus.

Everything he used to love disappeared in the whirlpool of time, and even if Tevinter exists, that slabbered by barbarians island isn’t his homeland. Even if in Minrathous the ancient temples still stand — inside them praises are sung not to his gods.

Silence has betrayed him.

Even the stars have betrayed him.

In a thousand years after the First Blight, a woman dressed as a Grey Warden will enter Kirkwall, unseen, and in the gardens of non-Emerius, magister Amladaris for the first time in centuries will see cherries in bloom.

But by then, he will be too far gone to realise his loss.


End file.
